ITALICA
(Santi Ponce) Seville, Spain.
City
8 km NW of Seville, settled by Scipio in 206 B.C. with
wounded survivors of the battle of Ilipa. It had no special status. Between the time of Julius Caesar and that
of Augustus, however, it attained the category of municipium; under Hadrian, at the request of the city itself,
it was raised to the rank of colonia, with the title Aelia
Augusta Italicensium. It was one of the more urban communities of the Roman world, with a busy port on the
Guadalquivir, but the ruins known today are those of a
creation ex novo by Hadrian. Damaged by the invasions
of the third quarter of the 3d c. A.D., the city continued
to exist through the Visigothic period, only to be destroyed during Arab domination in the 9th-lOth c. The
village of Santi Ponce was built on its ruins.
The wall enclosed an area of some 30 ha. The wide
streets, intersecting at right angles, paved with large
stone blocks, and lined with porticos, sometimes reached
a total width of 16 m. A surviving sector of the city wall
near the amphitheater, with an entrance gateway and
two towers, dates perhaps from the end of the 2d or the
beginning of the 3d c. A.D. The amphitheater was one
of the largest in the Empire, 160 by 197 m. It was built
of large blocks of hewn stone and brick faced with marble and could accommodate some 25,000 spectators.
Much of the cavea is preserved with its corridors and
vomitoria still usable, and the underground service passages of the arena are in perfect condition. The amphitheater took advantage of a natural slope, although all
of it rose above ground. A theater has also been excavated recently, located like the amphitheater outside the
city wall.
There are two baths, the Baths of the Moorish Queen
to the W and The Palaces to the E. They are roughly
equal in size, date from the same general period, and
are very similar in plan. The former includes a swimming pool 21 m long, various rooms (two of them
vaulted), and on the N a large underground chamber
with three aisles. On the S is a porticoed street, onto
which one of the entrances to the baths (presumably the
principal one) opens. This entrance had three aisles besides a columned vestibule. The Palaces had a somewhat
smaller swimming pool (15 m), various rooms and passageways, and an underground section with vaults of
medium size, from which came some of the best sculpture found on the site. Both baths were built of broken
rubble coated with brick and sometimes faced with
marble. The floors are of opus signinum with large twofoot slabs, and mosaics with tesserae of colored marble.
The drainage system was admirable, a network of
drains and catch basins constructed in accordance with
the street plan. Water was brought in by an aqueduct,
portions of which are still visible, from Tucci (Escacena
del Campo) some 40 km to the W. The elevated portions of the aqueduct were carried on piers and low
arches. In addition, 18th c. sources mention a water
mill built of rubblework and hewn stone, now vanished.
Near the cemetery of Santiponce, N of the ancient
city, is an interesting group of spacious houses of the
domus type, rectangular and of identical plan. They lie
in a rectangular area formed by four streets, and most
of them have porticos. Axial in plan, they usually have
two patios, with a cistern and well, surrounded by covered ways on which the rooms open. Several patios have
fountains, and pools with mosaics of fish. Construction is
of rubble, faced with brick and ornamental marble or
colored stucco. The floors are of mosaic in the main
rooms and of opus signinum in the remainder. Noteworthy examples are the House of the Birds, of the
Labyrinth, of Hylas, and particularly the House of the
Exedra, which covers an area of some 3000 sq. m. It
consists of two basic elements: one a mansion or de luxe
residence with a porticoed patio in the center; the other
formed by two adjacent, parallel walk-ways, the more
important one terminating in a large apse.
The only burial ground yet excavated lies along the N
edge of Santiponce, where there was a structure with
three aisles terminating in a semicircular apse, perhaps
a Christian martyrium. Other monuments include the
graves of Antonia Vetia and of Valeria. A great many
lead coffins have been found, some with partially ornamented lids, and an enormous number of mosaics; some
of these are still in place, the remainder are in the archaeological museum of Seville or in private hands. They
have colorful figured or geometric designs, which have
inspired names such as the mosaic of the Bird, Bacchus,
Hylas and Hercules, the pygmies and cranes, a marine
thiasos, Ganymede, and Pan.
There is a superb collection of sculpture from the
excavations in the Archaeological Museum of Seville.
Noteworthy are the heads of Alexander the Great, Augustus, Nero, and Galba (?), there is also a bust of
Hadrian, and a colossal heroized Trajan, beside individual portraits, reliefs of deities, and mythological
themes. The smaller finds, carved gems, glass, and ceramics are dispersed among various museums and private
collections, notably the Archaeological Museum of Seville, the Lebrija Collection, and the museum of the
Hispanic Society in New York. There is also a new
museum m Italica itself, where future finds will be
shown.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
D. de los Ríos,
Memoria arqueológicodescriptiva del Anfiteatro de Itálica (1862); F. de
Collantes Terán,
Catálogo arqueológico y artístico de
la Provincia de Sevilla IV (1955); A. García y Bellido,
“Colonia Aelia Augusta Italica,”
Bibliotheca Archaeologica II (1960); id., “La Italica de Hadriano,” in
Les
empereurs romains d'Espagne (1965) 7ff; C. Fernandez
Chicarro,
Catálogo del Museo Arqueológico de Sevilla
(1969).
J. M. ROLDÁN